The Lunar Eclipse (Remembered)

I did not see last night's lunar eclipse. It was overcast and raining lightly, and besides, the eclipse I saw with my mother in the early eighties is the one I wish to remember always. I lived in New York at the time, but went home for a small vacation time in the summer. It was on one of these that I watched the eclipse with Mama, and on returning that I wrote the poem I include in this blip. The woman, other than Mama, at the start of the poem is a fellow writer. We were both members of the feminist writer's guild and had just left a meeting together. The photo was taken by a friend and dance student: Coco Collins of my mother and myself a few years later in my father's cottage.

Did you see - 
the round and smiling woman poet friend 
was asking as we crossed Broadway -
the lunar eclipse?
(Manhattan's teeming street was suddenly awash
in a coppery glow.)
Oh yes, my mother called me out 
of a waiting sleep 
to see and to follow her shining, aged path.
Yes, I remember the moon, 
and my mother speaking of magic.
She sat beside me summoning ancient ritual
of mother and daughter waiting on the moon.
Time and waiting had already veiled 
my mother's eyes,
yet she revealed the darkening moon:
the mystery of the silent and unseen.
The insects were quiet as I watched her face,
and slowly, slowly, slowly
the shadow was cast.
Mama's face had already attained 
a coppery glow from the summer sun.
Now the moon was affected
by Mama's earthen passing.
Yes, I saw the eclipse
and the shining aftermath: 
my mother's reflection.